Truths, shadows, ghosts carried down through the ages, the dark and the light.

The same story, told an infinity of times, because it must be told, because mankind forgets.
****
No one sings hymns to the old gods here; sound does not carry between stars. They rest, they sleep, forgotten; they dream
the universe into life.

In their dreams, they remember.

Ghosts draw breath and walk again.
****
Odysseus stands at the helm and feels the salt spray break on his face. He closes his eyes and when they open, he wraps himself
in brown faith and breathes a war cry to the dark.

There is no Troy and Paris burned long ago, the Eiffel Tower corroded and fallen to dust in poison air. His ship doesn't
splash as it cuts through the void. The shoreline of Ithaca is lost to him, a myth, a memory.
****
Priam's house is fallen, but Hector and Cassandra take sanctuary among their father's enemies. She speaks in tongues and
foretells the future. Her visions bring her pain; the gods do not love her.

Hector does. Older brother, sword and shield, he packed her away in a box like a china doll and didn't let her out until
he'd found peace. Or a synonym.
****
He was born to kill; he lives to kill; when he dies, he'll take another with him. The echoes of his story whisper in his
dreams- all the lives gone by, being made to fight and fight and fight again, to carry on the gods' war through eternity.
The rage of Achilles rekindled in his breast with each lifetime, fire and light. Killing perfected, untouchable, unstoppable,
until somebody does. Until Cassandra prays and the arrow falls, bringing him to heel.
****
Helen, they sing of Helen, fair face and fickle heart. She has learned, through all of her lives and pain. Sorrow tempers
the memory dreamed into breath by drowsing gods. She has loved and lost for a thousand lifetimes. Can it not end?

But again she gives her heart where she mustn't. Sleeping Aphrodite smiles.
****
Briseis and Andromache tremble and fuse in the twilight between dreaming and life. Pawn and lifemate, fool and queen-to-be,
they open her eyes as one. The strength of a warrior people fills her veins; she buys her place in a man's blankets. A delicate
woman with strong hands. They dream that, in this life, she shall not be queen. She shall serve.
****
Loyal crew. Faithful crew. Left nameless in the books of ages, they rise at their Captain's call. Their faces twist and
warp through the press of time; they are man and woman when they find him. It matters not. Their place is behind him, a
pace and to the left. Their hands find each other. It feels right to be shieldmates.
****
He watches. Every iteration of the dream, from the first through the ages, he has watched them. Arrows and spears, swords
and armor, guns and grenades, he has seen it. From the first time after the time that was Truth, from the first time that
it was only their dream, the gods have granted him his eyes.

His gift has been fused with his purpose through the slow turn of time's wheels, and now he need only be present. The dream
will unfold as it must, and he will record it with mind and heart and memory.